


Two Sides of the Same War

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Lord of War (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-18
Updated: 2006-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:39:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1624724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People in power need men like Yuri. People in power need men like Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Sides of the Same War

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sandrine Shaw

 

 

He shouldn't be here. It's not a good idea. The odds that he'll end up shot, humiliated or some combination of the two are... Well they're good.

**

People in power need men like Yuri. It's a sad, depressing, fact of life for most governments. Governments don't stay in power because of the people. Or rather countries that aren't in the European Union, North America or Russia don't stay in power because of the people. Countries that were founded on civil war rarely seem to make it past the peace talks. The civil wars just crop up over and over with different names in place of Victor and Loser. The dead keep dying and the living never really live.

**

He stands with his back to the door. There's no real point in running away, if tracking Yuri has proven anything, it's that the capability to get under someone's skin works both way. The abyss looks back after all.

**

When Yuri looks back on his life he wonders if there was a path that would have led him to become a better human being than he is. If he would have gone left one morning instead of right on his way to school, could he have ended up a dentist in Oakland? But Fate has its own quirks and Yuri never really believed that you could be anything other than what you were meant to be. He was always meant to be rich, powerful and in the end, oh so alone. The job description might have changed but the final result would always be the same. He was destined to be what he was.

**

He takes a deep breath, raises his fist and knocks on the door.

**

People like Jack never understand people like Yuri. When it's so obvious that your life will end in ruin, your family will abandon you, your friends will be invisible and your money will never really amount to anything substantial that you can count, why continue? Why not just stop? Turn yourself in, give up and try to become an actual member of the human race. The idea that a person could destroy lives day after day and yet never notice that he was destroying his own along the way was a concept that Yuri figured out too late.

**

"I'm not really- I don't know what- I just ended up here."

**

There's something to be said for living the quiet life in the suburbs. The majority of the world will never know what it's like to go outside on a Sunday morning, grab the paper and do the crossword. Instead they'll spend the day foraging for food, dodging machine gunfire and sleeping on the floor of a ramshackle building that was too embarrassed to call itself a hut. They can't even dream about living the quiet life in the suburbs because they wouldn't know how.

**

"Come in Jack, I've been expecting you."

**

People like Yuri never understand people like Jack. When it's so obvious that everything you do on a day to day basis never matters, that as soon as you close in on a suspect, the government finds a way to open a window, when nothing you do ever amounts to anything substantial, why continue? Why not just stop? Turn in your badge, give up and try to live as a member of the human race, not just as a shadow. The idea that a person would live his life following in the steps of another and yet never notice that he was no longer living his own life was a concept that Jack almost realized too late.

**

He stands with his back to the world. There's no one and nothing left. There's no point in running, if knowing Jack has proven anything, it's that Yuri has become deceptively easy to locate. He's tempted to wonder if the agent put anything into his drink while he was in custody but dismisses that as too under-handed. The truth is that Jack knows him in a way that Yuri less than comfortable.

**

One day Yuri sat down and tried to count the hours that Agent Valentine had spent tracking him. Hours spent on stakeouts waiting for Yuri to make a miscalculation. Hours spent staring at a maze of inside information, clues and most importantly evidence. Hours spent staring at a bulletin board of ties, allegations and photos. Hours spent creating the perfect bullet-proof case. At the end of his calculation (at least two years worth), Yuri wondered how Jack felt when it only took Yuri hours to go free.

**

He takes a deep breath, raises his fist and knocks on the door.

**

People in power need men like Jack. It's a sad, depressing fact of life for powerful governments. Governments don't stay in power without the people. Every country needs a shining star, every person needs someone to look up to, and everyone needs a hero. Sometimes the hero you get is actually a villain in disguise. Sometimes the hero you get is perfect and true. Sometimes the hero is the one you need at the time, but not forever. Sometimes you get the hero that's out to save the world from itself. And once, just once, you get a hero that only wants to save you.

**

"I'm not really- I don't know what- I just ended up here."

**

The most important fact about civil wars is that the people fighting each other are countrymen. They are two sides of the same war. Both sides are Iraqis, West Africans, Haitians; they speak the same language, eat the same food and wear the same clothes. They're human, they're brothers of the same nation and unfortunately they've found the oldest way to destroy themselves. And so the cycle continues; the weapons dealers find new customers, the police find new targets and the common citizens keep on dying.

**

"Come in Yuri, I've been expecting you."

**

Life has a very definite ending. There's Life and then there's not. The only thing humans can do is enjoy the path that Fate sets out along the way. Maybe Yuri was supposed to break the law and lose everything. Maybe Jack was supposed to uphold the law only to watch the criminal walk free. Maybe they were supposed to end up circling each other, testing each other's weaknesses until they discovered the truth; at the end all they had was each other.

 

 

 


End file.
